Tag Archives: Land Grabbing

Land conflict for oil palm is still an issue in Merauke Two children ran towards the forest. As they got closer to the trees that at first seemed to be a thick forest, a broad carpet of felled trees became visible. The two could witness exactly how the green bulldozers were working to clear away […]

Austindo Nusantara Jaya wants to be seen as an environmentally-friendly company. Sixteen pages of its 2016 Annual Report went into considerable detail on its sustainability practices, and, on 11th October, a new Sustainability Report was published. Packed with commitments, it gives the impression of a company at the forefront of the sustainability movement . As […]

The outlook for the plantation industry in Papua has started to show signs of change recently, both because of a sustainability drive in the palm oil supply chain, which has forced many companies to suspend deforestation plans, and better-informed indigenous communities increasingly opposing companies’ attempts to acquire their land. Not all companies are taking these […]

Titus Mahuze, a resident of Afkab Makmur village in Muting District, Merauke Regency, has complained about how oil palm company PT Agriprima Cipta Persada has cleared land and ancestral forest belonging to the Mahuze Kewamese, without meeting with the community first and obtaining their agreement. In 2015, PT ACP started to conduct a survey of […]

When the oil palm plantation companies first arrive in the villages they promise jobs for indigenous Papuans, an effort to implant dreams of improved economic well-being and higher incomes. Once work starts however, the promises aren’t followed through and the imagined changes never come about. Meanwhile, the land and forest which used to provide the […]

‘The Mahuzes’, a film about conflicts between indigenous people and agribusiness companies in Merauke, was released in Indonesian last year, and now it is available with English subtitles. It’s one of a series of documentaries produced as part of the ‘Ekspedisi Indonesia Biru’, a one-year road-trip on motorbikes by filmmakers Dandhy Laksono and Ucok Suparta, […]

Speaking in front of the Judges’ bench in the Sorong District Court, state prosecutor Katrina Dimara accused Obet and Obi of having violated article 170 of the Indonesian Criminal Code, and asked the council of judges to hand down prison sentences – one year for Obet Korie and eight months for Odi Aitago, less the […]

Speaking to journalists in Jakarta, the Agriculture Minister has admitted that the plan which President Jokowi announced in May this year, to develop 250,000 hectares of rice estate each semester, is not progressing as fast as the government had hoped. The reason is the difficulty in getting permission to use indigenous land. Given that the […]

On 15th May this year, dozens of students and others from the Iwaro ethnic group from Metamani and Inanwatan in South Sorong Regency, staged a protest action with banners and speeches, blocking the offices of oil palm company PT Permata Putera Mandiri (PPM), on Jalan Ahmad Yani, Sorong City, West Papua Province. According to Simon […]

Officials in Jakarta can’t seem to stop making pronouncements promising vast new agricultural expansion along the eastern frontier of the Indonesian state. In May President Joko Widodo announced 1.2 million hectares of rice fields to be developed in three years in the Merauke area of West Papua. Now his agricultural minister, Amran Sulaiman, has apparently […]